


It's Not You I Want (But You'll Do)

by Her_Madjesty



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Fighting As Foreplay, Fingerfucking, Fucking the Wrong Person, One Night Stands, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 08:15:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16260269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Her_Madjesty/pseuds/Her_Madjesty
Summary: “You are ridiculous,” Cassandra bites out.Hawke licks her lips and watches Cassandra’s eyes track the motion. “Of course I am,” she says, grinning. “That’s why it’s so hard for you to admit that you like me.”





	It's Not You I Want (But You'll Do)

**Author's Note:**

> This piece could be distantly connected to the Cassandra/Inquisitor piece I wrote...in May? as something of a prequel, but it also stands thoroughly on its own. Congratulations, Bartrand, you've got me writing something equivalent to a sex series.
> 
> Recommended listening: The Weeknd's ["The Hills."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzTuBuRdAyA)

Skyhold isn’t Kirkwall, Hawke reminds herself, leaning over the edge of the castle’s grand battlements. This fact, of course, makes itself obvious in the structure’s lack of chains and generally calm demeanor, but Hawke still finds herself having to remind herself where she is, leaning back against the cool stone. If she closes her eyes and pretends that the wind off the mountains tastes the same as wind off the sea, it feels like the Viscount’s Keep, towering and ominous over the city she loved.

It’s not that she’s homesick, of course. It’s more that she’s stupid. If she wasn’t, Hawke figures she wouldn’t be loitering in Skyhold’s upper battlements at all. They’re not all bad, of course – perfectly stable and firm underfoot. Formal. Rigid. Etcetera. She’d even go so far as to call them imposing, thus adding to the stupidity of her decision to linger on them just because one of her oldest, dearest friends happened to ask her to, pretty please with a magister on top.

Then again, if she didn’t have a friend like Varric Tethras, who spelled out the directions to the mountain-bound fortress with the determination of a man possessed (Hawke lets out a huff that might be a laugh but might just be sad), she wouldn’t be clinging to its stone walls at all, waiting for an undisclosed amount of time and an equally undisclosed amount of political maneuvering before Varric’s new best friend, her Inquistorialness, moved against the Venatori and Wardens in the west. Pros and cons. Maybe.

Hawke sighs and turns away from the extensive mountain range. If she squints, she can make out some of the finer details of the colorful ants crawling around the courtyard below her. Knight-Captain Cullen – because what else can he be? - stands by the fighting pits the Inquisitor has installed, arms crossed as he calls out instructions to the soldiers under his command. Hawke watches the way he paces around them, a little bit wolf-ish save for the frankly ridiculous man of fur he’s wrapped around his throat.

A cool wind blows off of the mountain tops. Hawke shivers, then mentally rewrites her assessment of the Knight-Captain’s overlarge winter scarf.

She’s antsy. Impatient. Irritated. Subconsciously, she knows she’s looking for Varric, but the dwarf is as unlikely to make an appearance below her as anyone else from Kirkwall save the Knight-Captain. He’s been taken out for a jaunt with the Inquisitor, anyway, leaving Hawke tied up and lonely with nothing to do and no one to bother.

Hawke brushes stray strands of hair out of her face and frowns. As she goes to push off of the stone – maybe the Herald’s Rest will have some interesting gossip – she catches a glimpse of sharp, short black hair. It’s not particularly unique, but it – and the body beneath it – draw her up short.

Hawke leans a little further over the edge of the battlements to see Seeker Pentaghast marching across the courtyard. She’s too far away to make out the expression on the Seeker’s face, but Hawke, for all of her bad decisions, is not as much of an idiot as she likes to make herself seem.

The Seeker’s probably pissed.

A slow smile starts to creep over Hawke’s face. She grabs her staff, leaves her perch, and impatiently begins to descend from the battlements.

Varric’s treatment at the hands of the Seeker hadn’t gone unnoted in the letters he’d sent her. Nor had his nervousness about the state of affairs that might arise, if Cassandra found out he’d been lying to her. Hawke had been there when he’d announced her arrival, though – hadn’t really been able to avoid it – and she’d seen the way the Seeker’s face had lit up in fury.

That’d been a fun few minutes, freezing the Seeker’s feet to the floor while the Inquisitor, bless her elven soul, held back the Right Hand of the Divine. Varric’s subsequent exit from Skyhold had been little more than his survival instinct winning out over the loyalty in his too-large heart, and given the grudge that Cassandra bore, Hawke couldn’t bring herself to hate him for it. Much.

All the same, Cassandra presents an...opportunity. Hawke may have left Aveline back in Kirkwall, but here is Cassandra, the spitting image of her favorite guard captain – save for the hair, and the face, and the Nevarran heritage. Whatever. Same idea.

Hawke has found herself a playmate.

Stalking the Right Hand of the Divine is not a simple task, of course. Hawke considers herself up to the challenge, but she does underestimate the familiarity Seeker Pentaghast has with Skyhold. By the time she’s managed to separate herself from the battlements, she can only see the wintery shine of the Seeker’s hair in the distance, moving as she is away from the Inquisition’s training dummies and into the depths of Skyhold, itself.

Hawke follows.

Her entrance into the courtyard is unremarkable. She prefers it this way, of course, but it’s strange, to walk about and not be recognized. As she makes her way past the training pits, she sees Knight-Captain Cullen do a double-take, but the man is too well conditioned to come after her. Hawke summons her best haughty smile and pushes through the exhaustion behind it, focusing on the moment of play. She’s here! She’s having fun! The world’s not coming to an end!

The full body shudder the expression gets from the Knight-Captain is almost enough to satisfy the strange emptiness lurking in her stomach.

But back to the Seeker. Hawke gives herself a shake and sets herself up by a half-open door just behind the Herald’s Rest. She can hear a smattering of conversation within, the gruff tones of the Inquisition’s carpenters and stone masons tempered by sharp exclamations of the Seeker’s.

Hawke leans her head back against the mossy stonework and smiles.

It’s a simple trick. She pulled it on Carver all the time growing up and Aveline – once. To her credit, Aveline was and is a hell of a lot scarier than Carver, but it had still been worth it at the time. Even when Aveline had chased her through the street. Totally worth it.

So, when Hawke hears the Seeker start to move away from the Inquisition's workmen, she casts her gaze towards the sky, wraps a hand around her staff, and sticks the butt of it out across the threshold of the door.

The Seeker, marching as always – plummets into the dirt.

Hawke chokes. Laughter bubbles up in her chest, and before she knows it, she’s bent over, hands on her knees as she tries to remember how to breathe.

“I didn’t – I didn’t think that would work!” she crows, pressing one of her hands over her mouth.

The Seeker looks back at her, fire and fury written into every plane of her face. She brushes mud away from her mouth with a sharp swipe of her wrist.

“What. Do you think. You’re doing?”

Hawke tries to answer, she really does, but she can’t speak beyond the laughter.

Cassandra glowers up at her, face spattered with cold, wet mud.

Through her tears, Hawke can barely register the shifting of the Seeker’s legs. One moment, she’s barely upright; the next, she’s hitting the ground, too, landing face first on Cassandra’s breastplate with a sharp crack.

Cassandra is quick to shove her away and to scramble to her feet, but even through the sudden burst of pain and the tears of laughter, Hawke can see her cheeks starting to turn red. She lays back in the dirt and ignores the set of eyes she can see peeking out of the Inquisition’s requisition room.

“Seeker Cassandra!” she says, voice only slightly muddled by the hand she brings to grip her nose. “Maker, I thought you’d be a little more aware of your surroundings. If you had it in you to catch the renowned Varric Tethras, surely you know better than to walk over just any threshold without looking.”

A foot comes down hard on Hawke’s chest. It shortens her breath, but she still manages a cheerful chuckle.

Cassandra looks as though a dragon has taken roost in her throat. “I’ll ask you again, Champion,” she says. “What – precisely – do you think you’re doing?”

Hawke shrugs as best she can. “Looking for a little bit of fun. You seemed like you could use cheering up.”

Cassandra stares.

“Was I wrong?”

“Quite.” The foot leaves Hawke’s chest. Hawke dutifully brushes away some of the dirt Cassandra has left behind, then scrambles to sit upright as the Seeker begins to walk away.

“Where are you going?”

“Unlike you, Champion,” says Cassandra, “some of us have work to do. Go and bother someone else.”

Well, that just won’t do. Before Cassandra can take more than two steps away, Hawke lashes out, legs flying in order to catch one of Cassandra’s ankles with her own.

The Seeker is quicker, this time around, but she still stumbles. Her irritated grunt leaves Hawke smiling, even as a bit of blood begins to drip from her nose onto her upper lip.

Cassandra pauses above her. Hawke blinks back, the picture of innocence.

She doesn’t notice how quiet the courtyard has gone around them – even Cullen, usually so dedicated to his work, has had his soldiers lower their swords.

Cassandra looks – less considering, more incensed. “Stand up, Champion,” she commands.

Hawke crosses her legs in front of her. “Why?”

The growl Cassandra lets out sends an uncomfortably pleasant shiver down Hawke’s spine. Hawke doesn’t resist as Cassandra bends and grabs her by her unruly collar, nor does she hesitate to find her feet once Cassandra sets her upright.

“I do not have time to give you the attention you so desperately seem to require,” Cassandra all but sneers. “However, you seem intent on causing me insult.”

Hawke guffaws. “Just having a little fun, Seeker,” she says. There is a moment’s pause, and then, “You do know what that looks like, right?”

It shouldn’t be enough to warrant a pommel to the face. Hawke knows how to gauge her opponents well, though, and it’s clear, from the line of Cassandra’s shoulders to the snarl on her beautiful face, that someone’s been having a bad day.

That works out fine. It’s been a while since she’s had a good fight.

Still, a pommel to the face? Bit much for a bad joke.

Hawke dodges the oncoming blow with a quick duck and lets Cassandra push forward into the space she no longer occupies. She retrieves her staff from where it’s fallen on the ground and gives it an artful twirl. The blade on its non-magical end gleams in the afternoon sunlight.

Cassandra whirls, her own blade drawn. She wrestles with her shield for no more than a moment before meeting Hawke’s eye.

Only the clearing of Cullen’s throat breaks through the anticipatory quiet around the women.

“Lady Cassandra,” calls the Knight-Captain.

Hawke looks over to him, one eyebrow raised.

Cullen refuses to make eye contact with Kirkwall’s Champion. “Might I recommend the pit?”

Hawke smiles.

*

It hasn’t been long since she’s been in a fight, but it’s been long enough, between leaving the Free Marches and coming to Skyhold, that her fingers are itching. Hawke leans back against the wooden fence surrounding the Inquisition’s pits and taps a pattern out against her staff. Across the ring, Cassandra pulls a helmet down onto her head.

A crowd’s gathered. The Iron Bull, who Varric’s dedicated multiple pages to, stands with his arms crossed and a smile on his face closer to the Seeker’s side of the ring. Sera, who Hawke vaguely recognizes, either from the shadows of Kirkwall or the shadows of the Herald’s Rest, lingers on hers, giggling like someone’s put earwigs in her underwear.

“Not big on magic, really,” she says, as though Hawke’s listening. “But give Miss Right Hand one for, yeah?”

Hawke glances back. “What’d she do to you?”

Sera just sticks out her tongue. “Get on with it!”

Despite herself, Hawke laughs. She straightens and cracks her neck, dragging her staff towards the center of the ring. Cassandra finishes adjusting the last straps of her shield and moves to join her.

Cullen, off to the side, does his best to look tired, but Hawke knows him. Not well, but she knows him; she’s fought with him and against him, and it’s not hard, after that sort of thing, to recognize a gleam in someone’s eyes. “Keep it clean, please,” he says, placing a hand between the two women. “Seeker, how do you want to do this? First blood?”

“Excuse you,” says Hawke.

“To surrender,” says Cassandra. She smashes her cross guard against her shield, and Cullen wisely steps out of the way.

“You know,” Hawke says, relaxed as ever, “if you kill me, you’ll have to explain yourself to Varric.”

“Then, Champion, I suggest you try not to die.”

And she charges.

Or, rather, she tries.

Where her maneuver would normally put her opponents on the ground, Hawke beams her with her staff, straight in the face with the crystal ball the serves as a counterbalance to its blade. The helmet saves her from the worst of the impact, but she still stumbles backwards, giving Hawke enough room to retreat and to dig in her heels. Electricity crackles in the air, charges through her staff, and leaves Cassandra’s breastplate scorched with lightning.

Cassandra lets out a furious cry, and then the fight begins in earnest.

Warriors, Hawke has found, are somewhat predictable. Cassandra, with all of her sturdiness, does not vary from the pattern. Dodge, dodge, cast, and save the mana pool until there’s enough stored up to send Cassandra sprawling backwards.

Even so, the barriers Hawke manage to cast do her good. Where an everyday bandit will at least go down after a good shock or two, Cassandra keeps coming, unrelenting and snarling through her helmet. Hawke finds herself pressed back against the wooden posts of the ring more often than she likes, scrambling for room to move while the Seeker tries to skewer her.

It is an abominably fair fight. Pity Varric isn’t around to see it, Hawke thinks, twirling her staff to let the blade do her talking for it. It’d lend an interesting chapter to whatever book he plans to write about the Inquisition.

It’s this distraction, though, that lets Cassandra in. The Seeker gives her a gracious cut to the body that only avoids piercing skin due to the density of the Champion’s armor. Hawke loses her breath, anyway, and stumbles, giving Cassandra the time she needs to kick her solar plexus and send her sprawling.

By the time Hawke manages to figure out why she’s on the ground, Cassandra has a foot on her chest and her blade at Hawke’s throat.

“Yield!” she snarls.

Hawke smirks. “Pass.” With a swift hand, she grips Cassandra’s ankle and lets a pulse of flame lick up the Seeker’s body. Cassandra reels back with a cry. Hawke shifts her hips and is on her feet, in the interim, stretching out a hand and, through two fingers, extinguishing the flames with a sharp burst of ice. The whole of the Seeker’s body goes still, covered in a gentle, snowy sheen.

Hawke leans back against the nearest banister and lets the gasping of the crowd warm the cockles of her heart.

“Thought templars had some hand-wavy shit to help them deal with magic,” she thinks she hears a soldier ask Cullen, but when Hawke glances back, the woman seems more protective of her coin purse than offended that Hawke’s floored a local hero.

She smirks as, across the ring, ice begins to shatter. Cassandra falls to her knees, shivering.

“Lady Cassandra,” calls Hawke, the epitome of showmanship, “do you yield?” Before the Seeker has a chance to respond, Hawke takes care to stick the blade end of her staff beneath Cassandra’s chin, jut where the breastplate and neck guard fail to meet.

Even with the helmet in the way of her eyes, Hawke can feel the Seeker’s heated gaze trying to set her alight.

“...yes. I yield.”

“Of course you do.” And like that, the staff blade disappears. Hawke bends ever so slightly at the knee and holds out a hand, better to let the Seeker rise. Around the two of them, the watchful Inquisition lets out some odd amalgamation of cheers and chuckles. It’s clear, from the money Hawke can see exchanging hands, that she was not the favorite in this fight.

All the same, the Iron Bull looks pleased.

Cassandra makes a disgusted noise, but she takes Hawke’s hand. Hawke’s shoulders flex as she hauls the Seeker to her feet, careful to clap her on the shoulder as she makes her way out of the ring. She flashes a smile at Knight-Captain Cullen only to see the man roll his eyes. He can’t hide the small smile on his face, though, and Hawke takes that as enough of a victory.

The crowd parts to let her through, and few of the folks within are brave enough to follow her as she marches out of the Inquisition’s courtyard. Despite her fame, Hawke knows her short-comings well – she doesn’t have a lot of friends here. It’s nothing personal, of course. Maker knows that Varric’s spun enough stories about her that she at least is welcomed by this motley crew, but there’s something about staring down the legendary Champion of Kirkwall that tends to tie people’s stomach in knots. And get her free ale, but whatever.

Booze and loneliness. Hawke lets out a huff of a laugh and wipes the sweat from her brow.

She could retreat to Varric’s quarters, of course, instead of making her way back up to the battlements, but she needs to make her glorious exit from her battle with the Seeker look good. As such, pulling an about-face and marking into the Inquisition’s keep isn’t really an option. The steps in Skyhold offer to lead her downward, towards the stables and the little camp that the healers have set up below.

Hawke tilts her head, considering.

In her moment of hesitation, a hand wraps around her aching bicep.

Hawke flinches. She’s careful to paste a smile onto her face as she turns.

Cassandra blinks at her, tired and bruised but still managing to quirk an eyebrow, as though everything Hawke does – no matter how impressive – will fail to move her.

Hawke opens her mouth, ready for something witty to leap from her throat, but no noise comes out. After a few moments of gaping, she presses her lips together and offers the Seeker a shrug.

Cassandra’s hand drops from her arm, as awkward as the silence between the two women. It rises again, a moment later, to rest between Hawke’s shoulder blades.

Brow furrowed, Hawke doesn’t resist as Cassandra guides her down the steps. She shoots the women several confused looks from over her shoulder, but Cassandra only looks back with her usual disdain on her face.

It makes Hawke want to laugh, as much as it burns tension into her shoulders.

Cassandra guides her by the small medical ward, then out past the stables and into a quiet, secluded tower. The rooms are still under repair, but there is a warmth about them. There are even a few chairs scattered about, some of them cushioned with moldy cotton and some that look as good as new.

Cassandra, continuing her stoic march, pushes Hawke into one of the chairs.

Hawke sits, as she suspects is expected, and turns to watch Cassandra coax a fire from the nearby abandoned and dusty fireplace. She watches the Seeker’s form as she moves through the shadows, determination in every step.

Finally, she manages to find her voice. “Are we going to need manacles for this?”

Cassandra rolls her eyes, and the fire in the fireplace catches. The Seeker turns and tosses wood from a small pile onto the tinder and pokes at the flames until they start to grow.

“I’m serious,” says Hawke. “I’ve heard about the kind of things you get up to when left to your own devices, and I just want to check in.”

“No wonder you befriended Varric so quickly,” Cassandra says, her voice as dry as a riverbed in a drought. “Your senses of humor are equally terrible.”

“I taught him everything he knows,” Hawke replies. She leans back in her chair, careful to keep a steady grip on her staff, but relaxed enough that the tension Cassandra’s brought out in every muscle of her body can start to ease.

Cassandra hums. Once she seems content with the room, she takes a chair of her own and bends forward, resting her elbows on her knees. Hawke mirrors the position, leaving an inch or two of space between the two women’s noses.

Cassandra narrows her eyes.

Hawke grins.

“I do not understand you,” Cassandra says, at last.

Hawke notes that she does not pull back from their unconventional standoff and admires her all the more for it. “I am an enigma,” is what she actually says, when she manages to tamp down her ever-growing smile.

“You have an entire book written about your exploits,” Cassandra replies, “but yes, I fear you are not incorrect. You seem especially difficult to know, even when looked at through the eyes of your dearest friends.”

Hawke does not relay the obvious – that Varric is a notorious liar who hides in plain sight, and worst of all, a writer. Writers, as her dwarfy friend is prone to saying, not only lie, but operate with a story in mind. The details of _The Tale of the Champion_ , embellished or otherwise, are arranged just so. They paint an exceptionally particular picture of all of the characters involved, and it is that picture that will outlive all of them, even Varric himself.

But Hawke does not say this. Instead, she says, “Surely you can understand a person’s need for privacy, Seeker? Didn’t your entire organization operate somewhere in the middle of the Frostbacks for a couple of years, just to get away from Fereldan’s politics?”

To her surprise, a flash of a smile flickers over Cassandra’s face. “There is a difference,” the Seeker insists. “An organization is not a person.”

“There are some who would argue against that.” Hawke continues to hold her position mirroring Cassandra’s, even as her back begins to ache. “But we digress. Did you lead me to the back end of Skyhold to seek revenge, or is there something here that I’m missing?”

She can actually see the concentrated effort Cassandra puts in to not knocking her upside the head. In the dancing light of the fire, she thinks she even sees a slight flush covering the Seeker’s cheeks.

“I just want to understand,” Cassandra says, almost a growl. “You seek attention like a child, picking fights and mooning along the battlements – what is it that you’re waiting for, Champion? What cause do you need that is greater than that of the Inquisition’s?”

“I don’t need a cause,” Hawke insists, but her trademark smile drops into the smallest of frowns. “And I’m here, offering help that your Inquisitor has been slow to take. If I’m waiting for anything, it’s for her.”

The flicker of irritation that crosses Cassandra’s face surprises Hawke less than the expression of understanding.

“It seems we all must wait for her,” the Seeker agrees. She leans back in her chair, finally, with a look so forlorn on her face that Hawke nearly tips forward for the weight of her sympathy. On impulse, and in as much looking for an opportunity to move, Hawke rises and carefully – carefully, like approaching a dragon in the wild – brushes her ankle against Cassandra’s.

“I think my waiting and your waiting are a little different,” she says, pacing towards the fire. “But yes. Being the hero of anything is a little demanding on a person’s time. Believe me, I know.”

Cassandra laughs. Something strange and terrible warms in Hawke’s heart.

“Far be it from me to disbelieve you in that, if nothing else,” says the Seeker.

Hawke glances back and feels Cassandra’s gaze heavy on her shoulders.

The sympathy in the room is – stifling. Hawke feels like crawling out of her armor, crawling out of her skin – fucking someone until the mood lifts and she can pretend this conversation never happened.

Cassandra – love-sick, in her own way, and tired, and beaten – watches Hawke with as much impatience and curiosity and arousal as anyone else.

Hawke – considers it. She turns away from the fire and lets the warmth light her from the back. “What do you know about me?” she asks.

Cassandra’s face grows thoughtful. As her eyes drift towards the ceiling, Hawke takes a cautious step forward.

“I have read _The Tale of the Champion_ ,” Cassandra admits without shame. “And I have spoken with Varric. His book makes you one of the noblest of anyone who’s entered Kirkwall. You were not kind,” and here her gaze focuses again.

Hawke stops moving and breathes a sigh of relief – it seems that Cassandra hasn’t noticed the shrinking distance between the two of them.

“You were not always kind,” Cassandra repeats, “but you were fair. Sharp. Far too cynical for someone as young as you were when you came to that city.”

Hawke laughs and relishes the way Cassandra’s expression warms. “Maybe he got that right, then,” she says. The next step forward she takes places her at Cassandra’s side, then behind her chair. She stops as Cassandra continues to think, eyes drawn to the slim line of pale skin that peeks out of Cassandra’s armor.

“Perhaps you reminded me of myself,” Cassandra is saying, somewhere beyond the blood rushing through Hawke’s ears. “And perhaps that is why, when you arrived and were so biting, I was….”

Hawke takes her last step forward. She doesn’t quite touch the Seeker, but she does place her hand on the wood of Cassandra’s chair. The warmth of Cassandra’s skin radiates beyond her armor, and with the most delicate of fingers, Hawke reaches out, gently playing with a few strands of her hair.

“Were what?” she asks, into the quiet. “Disappointed?”

Cassandra guffaws. It is too bold a sound, given how breathless it appears she’s become. “Not quite,” she says. She shifts, just barely able to meet Hawke’s gaze in their precarious position. “Surprised, maybe. But it is impossible not to understand that, observant or not, Varric worked to preserve the best of you. That is something that is always worth admiring, even when faced with the reminder that one of your most beloved heroes is human.”

The flush that rides up Hawke’s back is almost uncomfortable, and it bubbles out of her in a laugh. In the heady air of the room, it is a simple thing to lean in and press a swift kiss to Cassandra’s crown. “Human is what I do best,” she says, pulling back with a wink.

It’s almost instinctive to step out of Cassandra’s rang as the Seeker whirls, rising with wide eyes. Hawke holds her hands up in surrender, but it doesn’t stop Cassandra from approaching her. Before long, Hawke’s back is against the wall, and one of Cassandra’s arms has shot out to better block her path to the door.

“You are ridiculous,” Cassandra bites out.

Hawke licks her lips and watches Cassandra’s eyes track the motion. “Of course I am,” she says, grinning. “That’s why it’s so hard for you to admit that you like me.”

Cassandra rolls her eyes. In the moment of vulnerability, Hawke links their ankles together and reaches out to better grip at Cassandra’s hip.

When Cassandra looks at her, fierce exterior gently chipped away, Hawke shrugs. “Consider it,” she says, voice a low purr. “You certainly don’t have to wait for me, do you?”

For a moment, there is hurt in Cassandra’s gaze. It is quick to shift, though, to something almost like amusement.

She doesn’t respond. Hawke goes to open her mouth, better to fill the silence, but then Cassandra is kissing her, and there’s no point in talking anymore.

Hawke knows that she talks a good game – that she may be an enigma when compared to all of the things that Varric’s written about her, but that, really, she’s an asshole. A straightforward asshole, at that. She likes a good fuck, can ride for as long as she needs to, and can tend to a partner. She’s readable.

Cassandra, though – as Cassandra’s pushing her into the walls of Skyhold, Hawke realizes that she can’t read the other woman at all.

A thigh slides between her legs. Hawke feels Cassandra nip at her bottom lip. The hand Cassandra blocked the door with comes to press against Hawke’s shoulder, just as hard as the stone grinding into Hawke’s back.

It takes several moments of hot lips against lips for Hawke to remember that she needs to breathe, and that the reason her head is spinning probably has something to do with lack of air. She breaks away from Cassandra’s mouth and tucks her head into the crook of the other woman’s neck, where she reminds herself to breathe while nipping at the skin there, the same place where she not so long ago had placed a blade.

“Armor,” she grunts, all the while the sharp bite of Cassandra’s thigh brace digs against her leathers. As Cassandra’s hand drops from her shoulder, Hawke grips her by the hips and sucks.

The noise Cassandra makes – Hawke doubts that anyone in the Inquisition has heard such a sound before. It doesn’t sound like a warrior taking a hit; it sounds like a woman, soft and with her eyelashes fluttering. Hawke grins into the bruise she worries onto Cassandra’s skin, pulls back, then settles in against to leave another of her marks behind.

Something clatters to the ground. Hawke opens her eyes for a moment to see Cassandra dropping her gauntlets. She pulls back, herself, to better undo the straps keeping the leathers of her legs held on. As they fall to the ground, Hawke glances up and catches a glimpse of the look in Cassandra’s eyes.

The Seeker is panting. Her mouth is beautifully red. The bruises Hawke’s left on her neck are the lightest shade of purple, but Hawke knows from experience that they’ll darken as the day goes on.

“Still up for this?” she asks, something wild coming to life in the back of her throat.

Cassandra looks as though she’s ready to reply, but changes her mind mid-thought. She crowds into Hawke’s space, using all of the single inch she has on the other woman to make her presence known.

“You do not scare me, Champion,” Cassandra doesn’t quite purr, but the rumble in the sound is the same. Hawke gulps at the pressure of her hands on her own worn breastplate.

The two women shed their armor. It’s a somewhat awkward process, with pieces intermingling on the sawdust-covered floor; Cassandra nearly trips over Hawke’s abandoned staff, at some point, and Hawke has to catch her by the back of her browning shirt just to keep her from pitching into the fire. This is not the first of their stumbles, but it is the one that drives Hawke backwards into another wall, where Cassandra, still half-armored, decides that undressing is less important than kissing all of the breath from Hawke’s lungs.

“You know,” Hawke manages to say, somewhere in between taking off her boots and kissing at Cassandra’s exposed stomach, “I should have – assumed that you’d be this single minded.”

Cassandra laughs. It’s a sound that tastes like coffee on the earliest of winter mornings, and Hawke looks up at her just to see the way her eyes crinkle. “It seems we must endeavor to get to know each other better, Champion,” she says.

Then, Hawke is pinned again, half-standing and at the mercy of Cassandra’s far too powerful thighs.

There is no bed in the chamber Cassandra’s locked them in. Both women discover this when, armor abandoned, Hawke herself ends up on the ground. The stone is cold enough that goosebumps rise on her skin, even with the proximity of the fire. Cassandra settles over her and plays with the loose threads of her shirt as Hawke complains.

“I know seduction wasn’t in the plan,” Hawke grouses, kissing Cassandra’s chin and settling the Seeker contentedly between her thighs, “but we could have made this a little more comfortable for ourselves.”

“You complain too much,” Cassandra murmurs, pressing her softly-clothed thigh against Hawke’s pussy. Hawke feels the wetness of her start to seep through her pants and decides that thinking – has likely become overrated. She reaches up, wraps both hands in the throws of Cassandra’s short hair, and pulls the other woman in.

Cassandra radiates heat.

Here, there is a searing kiss.

Then, hands on Hawke’s hips.

Hawke lets Cassandra lavish her neck with kisses.

Cassandra spreads Hawke’s legs and holds Hawke steady as the Champion squirms, desperate for friction against her clit.

The hands on Hawke’s hips migrate to her breasts, slow and teasing in a way that Hawke is frankly shocked the Seeker can manage.

In the interim, she props herself up on her elbows and mouths at the front of Cassandra’s shirt, eager for the sight of the Seeker’s tight breasts and the feel of them in her hands. It doesn’t take much convincing for Cassandra to lose the shirt, but just a little more for Hawke to convince her to let her tuck it beneath her ass.

The cold leaves both women shivering.

Hawke reaches up, stomach muscles straining, and cups one of Cassandra’s breasts. The other woman pants warm breath on her neck as she toys with her dusky nipple. The kisses against Hawke’s neck grow erratic, even as the pace at which Cassandra drives her thigh into Hawke’s wetness remains steady as a drum.

“You always want to be in control, don’t you?” Hawke murmurs, watching Cassandra’s face as she wrings more pleasure from the softness of her breasts. “I don’t bottom for just anyone.”

“I’m sure,” Cassandra manages, a gasping sound. “Perhaps I should be flattered.” Her own hands, struggling to find steady purchase, finally come to rest beneath Hawke’s own breasts. As Cassandra kisses her again, Hawke loses herself in a wave of pleasure.

Her own shirt ends up – somewhere.

Their pants don’t make it all that far; Hawke’s, in fact, remain around her ankles as Cassandra redirects her attention. Hawke lets out a whine as Cassandra’s breasts drift out of reach, but they settle in the other woman’s hair as Cassandra hauls her pants and underthings aside.

The smile on Cassandra’s face is blessedly familiar, predatory with want and victory. Hawke grins back, but it’s a weaker thing, a movement of muscles that collapses as Cassandra presses a kiss to her pussy. After a flickering of her tongue, Cassandra settles in on Hawke’s clit, and Hawke finds herself staring up at the ceiling, thighs tight around the Seeker’s ears as she struggles to hold herself together.

“I wouldn’t have – guessed that – you’d done this before!” she manages, barely.

Cassandra chuckles. The reverberations force a whine from Hawke’s throat. When the two women make eye contact again, Cassandra’s mouth is wet with Hawke’s want.

“As I said,” the Seeker replies, the picture of wanton composure, “it does not seem that we know each other well at all.”

Then, she’s back at Hawke’s pussy, and Hawke – witty, sarcastic Hawke – can do nothing but try and ride the Seeker’s tongue as Cassandra drives her closer to orgasm.

She doesn’t know when Cassandra slips two fingers inside of her, only feels herself filling up, feels her hips start to arch, feels the electricity building in her right hand and the way it dances across her body. Hawke lets out a cry, and suddenly, her mana falters. She feels Cassandra grin.

She cums, and the room she’s in does not catch on fire. No one gets electrocuted. Cassandra pumps in and in and in, and Hawke shudders around her, confused and aroused and – and – and –

By the time she manages to find the energy to lift her head off of the ground, Cassandra’s pulled away from her pussy. Hawke watches the Seeker play with herself, her back against the wall and her eyes fixed on the wetness between Hawke’s legs. She slips the fingers that once pumped into Hawke into her mouth, determined, it seems, to lick every last drop of cum off of them.

“You didn’t do that earlier,” Hawke slurs, forcing herself to sit upright.

Cassandra tilts her head, pleasure and amusement making her look several years younger than she is. Her fingers make the most delicious “pop” when she pulls them from her mouth. “Where would the fairness have been if I had?” she asks.

Hawke moves in, even as Cassandra continues to speak, kissing the other woman’s neck and letting her own hand take over between Cassandra’s legs.

“I would not deprive a warrior of her sword,” Cassandra murmurs, speaking more or less into Hawke’s mess of hair.

Hawke hums and flicks at her clit.

“I would not take a bow from a rogue,” Cassandra gasps.

Hawke kisses the hinge of her jaw. She can feel Cassandra’s muscles pulsing around her, but still, the Seeker carries on.

“And if – if I would not deprive them,” Cassandra says, struggling, it seems, to even think coherently.

Hawke takes advantage and brings her free hand to Cassandra’s breast, tweaking one of her nipples and listening to her voice as it begins to break.

“Then why – why – oh, Maker!”

Cassandra’s head hits the wall with a dull “thud,” and Hawke shudders, relishing the way the Seeker gushes around her fingers. She kisses the rapid-fire pulse point on Cassandra’s neck and presses into her, body and fingers alike, to better support her as she cums.

For a while, the only sound that fills the tower is Cassandra’s heavy breathing. Hawke closes her eyes and tucks herself into the crook of the other woman’s neck once more, not even bothering to haul her pants up from where they’re settled at her ankles.

Finally, though, through the post-coital haze, Cassandra finishes her thought. “I would as soon take your magic from you, an ally and fair opponent, as I would any of the weapons of my soldiers.”

Hawke feels her shift beneath her cheek and grumbles, the fingers of sleep reaching out and ready to take her.

“Champion?” Even Cassandra’s voice sounds a little muddled.

“Talk later,” Hawke grumbles, burying her nose further into the smell of arousal, sweat, and iron. “You’re too complicated right now. Sleep.”

There is a moment’s hesitation. Then, a hand comes down on Hawke’s bare back.

“You are ridiculous,” Hawke thinks she hears Cassandra say. It’s the last of the noises that reach her, and it’s kind enough to make her smile.


End file.
